Knight's Move (23 page)

An alarm ran through the datanet.  “One person, seemingly human, coming down from the hills,” Yu said.  “Request permission to move to intercept.”

Sandy studied the live feed.  The girl looked young, but moved like an old woman.  It was almost certainly the result of dehydration and poor nutrition, she decided, as the Marines moved away from the camp.  The girl didn't look very threatening, yet the Marines refused to allow themselves to grow sloppy.  Sloppy Marines, as Jess had told her more than once, ended up dead.  The Dragons were quite ingenious when it came to setting up traps on the ground. 

The girl came to a halt when she saw the Marines, staring at them in horror.  Sandy was puzzled – if there was one military force with good publicity, it was the Marines – and then realised that the girl simply hadn't recognised them.  She stepped forward and cracked open her helmet, trying not to breathe through her nose.  The stench was appealing.

“I’m Commander Mannerheim,” she said, as her helmet retracted into the base of her armoured torso.  “We picked up the planet’s distress call.”

“We thought we’d been abandoned,” the girl said.  She looked as though she was on the verge of complete collapse.  “They ... they killed them all.”

Private Riggs deactivated his armour completely, stepping out into the sunlight.  The girl flinched back slightly, then relaxed as he started to run a medical scanner over her body.  It was also tuned to search for hidden weapons, Sandy knew; a neat way to perform a security check without anyone noticing that it had been carried out.  The results popped up in the datanet; just as she’d suspected, the girl was suffering from hunger and thirst.  But apart from that she was largely uninjured.

“Here,” Riggs said, pulling a plastic bottle from his belt.  “You should be able to drink that without problems.”

Loomis, still wearing his armour, leaned forward.  “Where are the others?  We can take them all back to the ship.”

The girl tensed.  “Don’t worry,” Sandy said, as reassuringly as she could.  “We’re here to help.”

“They’re up in the hills, hidden in a cave,” the girl said.  “I’ll show you, I ...”

“We’ll help them too,” Sandy promised.  She squatted down beside the girl.  “What’s your name?”

“Susan,” the girl said.  “I used to work here.”

Sandy checked the files.  Susan Boon; camp supervisor.  The file stated that she was twenty-three, making her surprisingly young for a Federation citizen who had been given some real responsibility.  But, reading between the lines, Sandy had the feeling that no one else had wanted the job.  Between aliens packed into a cramped refugee camp and hostile locals, most older and wiser hands would prefer to stay away.  She would have been astonished if the girl had spent any time away from Earth before joining the Refugee Commission.

But I suppose that makes sense
, she thought, sourly. 
They wouldn't want to send an experienced person out here
.

Human refugees were easy enough.  God knew that the TFN and Federation Marines had recruited extensively from refugees or helped them to find jobs on Earth or the other Core Worlds.  And there was no real reason why refugees couldn't marry into locals and integrate, just as they had been doing on Fairfax.  But alien refugees couldn't integrate and they couldn't go back home.  And so they existed in a kind of limbo, where taking care of them was a thankless task.

Bastards
, she thought. 
And to think the Federation prides itself on its compassion
.

But she knew better.  The Federation might claim to honour the values of aliens, but only in the abstract.  If the Core Worlds had had an alien problem, just like the colonies, their attitudes would be very different.  Instead, they made fancy statements about aliens having the right to live without helping them find a place to live. 

“Got them,” Loomis said.  “Six people, hiding in a cave.”

Susan looked up, alarmed.  “Are you ... are you going to hurt them?”

“No one is going to be hurt,” Sandy said.  “You have my word as an officer that none of you will be hurt.  We do have to ask you some questions, but we won’t hurt you.  And then you can rest properly.”

She watched as Loomis and two others jogged off to pick up the others, then looked over at Riggs.  “How is she?”

“There’s nothing that some proper medicine and a few days of rest won’t cure,” Riggs said.  “Her bloodstream picked up some undesirable parasites from the local environment, which would probably have killed her in a few weeks, but we can flush them out once we get her back up into orbit.  I don’t think they ever gave her the full spectrum of vaccinations.  I’ll check her files, but if they didn't someone’s head is going to roll.”

Sandy nodded.  Few diseases from other ecologies could threaten humans, but the ones that did were often lethal.  Susan had been lucky, luckier than she knew.  Earth was the only planet in the Federation that refused to administer vaccinations to its children, let alone the genetic modifications that allowed them to adapt to new environments at astonishing speed.  It was something Sandy had never understood.  Years ago, the process hadn't been too safe, but now ...

She shook her head, then activated her communicator.  “Captain, we found the human supervisors, but there appear to be no alien survivors,” she reported.  “I think the humans were left alive deliberately.”

“Understood,” the Captain said.  “Odd, for raiders.”

Sandy nodded in understanding.  Four of the supervisors were young and pretty girls.  They could have been taken as sex slaves or simply sold into genuine slavery along the rim.  It was unusual for pirates to leave such potential sources of income alone ...

“I’ll bring them all back to the ship,” she said.  “We can interrogate them onboard, although I honestly don't think we will learn much from them.”

“We can but try,” the Captain said.  “I have to visit Landing City once you’re back.  We’ll discuss it after that.”

“Yes, sir,” Sandy said.  “Mannerheim out.”

Glen had grown up on Earth and Mars, where towering skyscrapers kissed the sky and the landscape was sculptured to suit the tastes of the rich and powerful.  Landing City was nowhere near as developed as any city on Earth or Mars; indeed, it looked rather like a small town by the standards of humanity’s oldest worlds.  But there was something about it that rather appealed to Glen, a simplicity that Earth and Mars both lacked.  The people here weren't cogs in giant corporate machines or rich and wealthy aristocrats, in all but name.

But they could be
, he thought, sourly.  Knight Corporation often provided funds for colony missions, knowing that the long-term investment would give the corporation the inside track on supplying the colony with whatever else it needed.  The system allowed them to influence the colony without creating a burden that was too heavy to be borne.  In the long run, and Theodore and his brothers always thought in the long term, it would benefit both the corporation and the planet. 

He pushed the thought aside as he surveyed all that remained of City Hall.  The attackers had been very precise, he had to admit; they’d shattered the building and smashed glass for dozens of miles around, but they hadn’t wrecked the rest of the city.  Unsurprisingly, the planet’s population had pulled the bodies out of the rubble, then left it alone.  Repairing it would take time, time they didn't know if they had.  It hadn't been an easy week for the survivors.

“This is what we face along the frontier,” Captain Bob Goerlich said.  “This attack is far from the worst I’ve seen.”

Glen nodded.  Captain Goerlich didn't have a TFN file, as far as anyone knew; Cynthia had sent a message back to Bottleneck asking them to check, but so far there had been no reply.  Glen suspected that he’d been assigned to be mission purely because the TFN knew almost nothing about him, although he had to have a combat record.  The Colonial Militia wouldn't hand a light cruiser over to someone who didn't have actual experience.  And there was no shortage of experienced officers
in the militia.

Captain Goerlich was short and stocky, solid enough to pass for a Marine.  Glen had wondered if he had transferred from the ground-pounders to the Colonial Militia’s starships, though it struck him as unlikely.  But the Colonial Militia had never bothered to separate the two functions as thoroughly as the Federation.  The Captain was also surprisingly diplomatic, even when discussing matters such as pirate raids and Federation policy towards the colonies.

“I know,” Glen said, sourly.  “How many people died?”

“Seventy,” Captain Goerlich said.  “And several thousand aliens.”

“By that standard, it’s one of the worst raids,” Glen pointed out.  But there was little point in arguing alien rights with Goerlich.  He’d made it clear that he thought aliens had a right to exist, just not on one of their worlds.  Glen had sent a note back to Theodore suggesting that one of the worlds the corporation owned could be turned into an alien homeworld, but there had been no reply.  “Over seven thousand deaths.”

If they’d been human, he knew, there would have been Federation-wide outrage.  The Dragons had slaughtered vast numbers of humans, but pirates tended to be a little more circumspect.  After all, everyone knew that the Draconic War had only started because one group of Dragon raiders had killed a relative of a Federation Senator.  The truth was a little more complicated, but somehow that version wasn't popular out on the edge of settled space. 

But few would really mourn the aliens.  Not even the Governor, who had clearly intended to make use of them for a political statement.  Indeed, dead aliens would allow her to make a very different statement, condemning the Colonial Militia for failing to protect them.  The fact that upwards of twenty thousand humans had also been exposed to enemy fire would be quietly ignored.

“They shouldn't have been here,” Goerlich said.  “Most of them weren't even brought here by the Dragons.  They were just transported here until we could scrape up the ships to move them somewhere else.  And then they waited.  And then they died.”

Glen scowled.  The sooner they found a new alien homeworld, the better.  There were all sorts of potential benefits for the corporation, everything from good publicity to taking advantage of alien viewpoints on technology.  The Dragons might have been behind humanity, apart from a brief advantage in the early years of the war, but they’d still come up with a whole series of unpleasant surprises for the human race.  Who knew what other aliens might devise, given the time.  And who knew how much profit the corporation might be able to make from them.’

His implant reported that Doctor Foster was summoning him.  He nodded to Goerlich and walked away, back towards the large warehouse that had been turned into a makeshift medical centre.  The first reports had suggested that the pirates had actually blown up the hospital, but closer examination had revealed that there wasn't anything bigger than a small clinic on the planet’s surface.  They’d simply never expected more than a handful of casualties at any one point.

“Captain,” Jane said, as he approached.  “We have most of the medical situation under control, now.”

“Good,” Glen said.  Hopefully, the Federation would get some good press out of the whole affair.  The news of the Governor’s convoy – and who it was intended to assist – had not gone down well with the locals.  From what Cynthia had said, the entire cluster was outraged at such largess for aliens.  “Do any of them require treatment onboard ship?”

“I don’t think so,” Jane said.  “There wasn't anything we couldn't handle with the portable medical kits, merely too many for the locals to cope with.  I’d like to leave behind some supplies when we go, but it isn't entirely essential.”

Glen considered it.  They were light years from Bottleneck, which was the closest place they could pick up Federation-issue supplies.  If the crew needed any of those supplies before they returned to Bottleneck they might be in some trouble.  On the other hand, it would earn them some friends ... or so he hoped.  Theodore had once grumbled that the corporation had spent considerable sums of money on charity and received nothing, not even goodwill, in return.

“Do it,” he said, finally.  Theodore’s advice could go hang.  “Just ensure that supplies of critical materials do not run low.”

Jane nodded.  “Yes, sir,” she said, stiffly.  “I want to run a final set of checks, then we can return to the ship.  There’s not much else we can do here.”

Glen gritted his teeth.  Whatever else happened, Tyson’s Rest was going to have real problems over the coming months.  The pirates had blasted the warehouses containing their food supplies, as well as crippling their government and distribution network.  Unless they got very lucky, they were going to have to tighten their belts – or fall into civil war.  He'd already sent a message to Fairfax asking if they could arrange food deliveries, but he knew it was unlikely that anything could be provided.  There just wasn't enough to go around.

“I’ll see you onboard ship,” he said, then paused.  “Doctor ... the supplies on the freighters, could they be fed to the human population here?”

“Perhaps,” the Doctor said, after a moment.  “I’d have to check their biochemical content first.  Not all of their food is palatable to humans or vice versa.”

“Check,” Glen ordered.  The Governor would be furious if he commandeered her supplies, but he
did
have the legal authority to do so.  But it would be a wasted gesture if the human settlers couldn't eat the food.  “And let me know as soon as you have an answer.”

***

Susan felt unsteady as she was helped into the starship’s conference room.  The XO, who had stayed with her on the shuttle and then in sickbay, was a reassuring presence, but the looming Marines had scared her even if they were trying to be friendly.  Somehow, she managed to climb into the indicated seat and look around, catching sight of a number of people in blue uniforms who looked back at her curiously.  She scrunched herself down into her chair and tried to make herself invisible.

“Susan,” the XO said, softly.  “I need you to tell us what happened, as clearly as possible.”

“Fine,” Susan muttered, resentfully.  She seemed to be on an emotional rollercoaster, despite the injection the medic had given her.  Relief at being rescued warred with anger and deep depression.  “The camp was attacked.”